Alonzo Potter

Alonzo Potter (July 6, 1800 – July 4, 1865) was an American bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States who served as the third bishop of the Diocese of Pennsylvania. Potter "identified himself with all the best interests of society." Early life Potter was born on July 6, 1800, in Beekman, New York. He was the sixth child of Anna and Joseph Potter, who was a farmer. His ancestors emigrated from England to Portsmouth, Rhode Island, in the mid-seventeenth century. Through his grandparents Thomas Potter and Esther Sheldon, respectively, Alonzo was descended from the co-founders of Rhode Island, William Arnold and Roger Williams. There have been in the Potter family two brothers who were bishops in the Episcopal Church: Alonzo Potter was bishop of the Diocese of Pennsylvania and his younger brother Horatio Potter was bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York. Alonzo's son Henry Codman Potter, successor to Bishop Horatio Potter in New York, was a third. Education The child Alonzo first attended the district school in his hometown. Although he was a "bright" student, he did not care for reading until he read The Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. Potter was so taken with the story that he could not put it down except for eating and sleeping. He later said that from then on, "I took pleasure in books." When Potter was twelve years old, he entered an academy in Poughkeepsie, New York. Within three years, his teacher said that, "by capacity and scholarship," Potter was ready for college. At age fifteen, Potter passed the entrance examination and enrolled in Union College in Schenectady, New York. In 1818, at age eighteen, he graduated with honors, and he "won the prize of college ambition." At his graduation, he gave the Valedictory Oration.